


A Meeting Of Minds

by rosied



Category: Giants Series - James Hogan
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-04 01:09:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6634897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosied/pseuds/rosied
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frenua Showm muses on her feelings about Earth people and her realisation that she might be misjudging them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Meeting Of Minds

I never trusted the Jevlenese, no matter what Calazar and Eesyan said, and I was right. Though I would never have been able to prove it – I could never think the way they do. True, I talked about their violent nature, their tendency to conflict, but it was all theoretical; I never truly understood it.

Garuth was right when he quoted the earth people's saying – set a thief to catch a thief (which was another alien concept – why take something that would be willingly given if you asked?), or set a human to catch a human.

But I didn't see how we could trust that the Earth people didn't think exactly like the Jevlenese? Maybe we would be exchanging one barely-known threat for another that was totally unknown. Garuth and his people claimed that they were indeed trustworthy - Shilohin in particular sought me out to protest my mistrust - but I wondered how well they really knew the Earth people. They spent such a short time on Earth. But then again, I had to admit that they did live with them rather than completely separately as we did with the Jevlenese. And when Shilohin pressed me as to the source of my belief in the aggressive nature of Terrans, I also had to admit that it was from the Jevlenese surveillance reports, which had turned out to be deliberately falsified. I hardly needed her pointing out the illogic there.

Shilohin challenged me to spend time with one of the Earth people and get to know them personally. She thought it might help if I talked to one of the diplomats rather than a scientist, as that would give us a common ground. I took her advice and spent some time getting to know Karen Heller, who had become in effect Earth's Ambassador to Thurien. I had noticed that in some ways she thought like a Thurien; maybe she could help me understand Earth people.

As it turned out, she not only helped me understand Earth people, she also helped me increase my understanding of myself - I realised from our discussions that as much as her diplomatic training was so akin to Thurien thinking, my stubborn insistence that the Jevlenese were not to be trusted might possibly be akin to Terran aggression.

So thanks to Karen, I have come to see that Thuriens and Terrans can complement each other, and that learning to work together will be beneficial to both our races.

I am proud to call Karen Heller my friend.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Here is a link to the Wikipedia entry for the series:
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giants_series
> 
> Frenua Showm is a Thurien (Ganymeans name for themselves) administrator who first appears in book 3 of the series, Giant's Star. She displays a persistent distrust of Earth people even after her fellow administrators are convinced that Earth people are not a danger to Thuriens, but gradually warms up to them due to developing a friendship with Karen Heller. This ficlet examines Frenua's thoughts leading up to the start of the friendship.
> 
> Karen Heller is an Earth diplomat, who also first appears in Giant's Star.
> 
> Garuth and Shilohin first appear in book 2 of the series, The Gentle Giants Of Ganymede. They are the Captain and Science Officer of the Shapeiron, a Ganymean research spaceship which, due to a mishap of the engines, arrived in the Solar System to find their home planet destroyed and a thriving civilization on Earth. As a result they have had extensive friendly experiences with Earth people and are quite upset that some Ganymeans, Frenua in particular are unwilling to take their word for the trustworthiness of Earth in general and their friends in the Earth delegation to the Giant's Star in particular.


End file.
